18-Dec-2001
Title: Two Divided By Zero 13/??
Author: Lasha Lee (anakerie@cinci.rr.com)
Pairings: 1x2, 3x4, 5xOC, OCXOC
Warnings: None, really
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing.
Planning a large party, involving guests from multiple worlds, wasn't the easiest thing to do, Duo decided.
It was even harder when you were constantly being distracted by your best friend pacing around your kitchen, alternating between berating your mate for ruining his life, and listing the horrible events that had probably befallen his only daughter by now.
"She's been on the shuttle for an hour." Heero finally snapped. "Unless you think she's decided to hijack it to Seta in a moment of pique she's probably fine."
"Yuy, I am not speaking to you." Wufei huffed. "You're the one that brought that... person here, and I use that term loosely.
Heero and Duo looked at each other, and Duo threw his hands up in the air. "Wu, it's a beautiful day. Go for a walk or something. Meditate. Help us plan the party. Do something constructive. Go on a picnic with Denea."
"Denea and I are not on speaking terms at the moment." Wufei replied stiffly.
Since the couple couldn't go more than two days without that happening, Duo was not overly concerned. He tried another tactic. "Didn't your mother ever tell you that if you keep making that face it will stick like that?" He absently threw some various meats on a couple of slices of bread. The stress was making him hungry.
"No she did not. My mother had useful things to say. She was gracious and well-mannered."
"Mothers are full of useful little tidbits, aren't they?"
Wufei buried his head in his arms as Gage strolled into the kitchen. "For example, my own dear mommy used to say things like 'that's the last Action Man I'm buying you. If you blow that one up, you'll just have to do without one.' Or 'Gift-wrapping road kill as a Christmas gift and giving it to your father was low, even for you!'"
"Road kill?" Heero raised an eyebrow.
"You try shopping for a man who has everything." Gage shrugged. "It's the gift that keeps on giving."
"What did you give your mother that year?" Duo couldn't resist asking.
"A gift certificate for belly-dancing lessons. It was all I could afford; she didn't have much cash in her purse at the time."
"You bought your mother a gift with money you stole from her." Wufei said in a cold, deadly tone.
"It's the thought that counts." The boy grinned. "My parents don't give me a lot of spending money; they're afraid I'll spend it all on drugs, hookers, or other things that might make them look bad if I'm caught with."
"I wonder why."
"What is he doing here?" Gage asked Duo. "Not that I don't find his company and little jibes at my person exhilarating, you understand, but curiosity does make me ask."
"Meishel left for Earth this morning. He's a little depressed." Duo ignored Wufei's outraged glare.
"Ah, yes. She stopped by last evening to wish me farewell, as I shall probably be headed home when she gets back. Charming young lady, that one. Quite ahead of most girls her age." He cocked his head at Wufei. "I'm curious where you found her and her delightful brother."
"What do you mean found?" Wufei slammed his palm down on the table.
"They're much too clever and interesting to be your own offspring."
"Why you so... "
"ENOUGH!" Heero growled. "Both of you."
"He started it." They both said in unison, pointing at the other.
"I don't care who started it." Duo felt like the father of small children again. "I'm ending it. If you're going to fight, do it somewhere else. I'm not in the mood to listen and neither is Heero."
"And you shall not have to. I have many things to do today, and as much fun as it would be to stay here and watch Justice Skunk wallow in his misery, I must be on my way." He picked up Duo's sandwich.
"HEY !" Duo protested. "That's mine."
"Sowwy, Um a gowing boy." Gage said around a mouthful. "It's gweat. You showld twy one."
He waved and went out the backdoor, letting it bang shut behind him.
"Not one word." Heero raised a finger at Wufei. "We're the ones living with him."
"By your own choice." Wufei shot back. "Why not just call his mother, admit that you made a mistake, and send him back?"
"He's actually been a little angel lately." Duo was making another sandwich. "You just bring out the worst in him. As far as we know, he hasn't broken any laws since we brought him here."
"As far as you know. And he's been a horrible influence on my son!"
"Oh?" Heero noticed Duo's back turned and grabbed the sandwich, taking a bite.
"Shan barely speaks to me anymore. He stays up in his room with that stupid VR program all the time, and he spends every minute with that miscreant."
"Wu, Shan is fifteen. All teenage boys act like that. You're lucky he's not out getting drunk. At least you know where he's at."
Wufei sighed. "You're right, I suppose. I miss him, though. Meishel at least would spend time with me before she left. Now I've lost both of my children for the duration of the summer."
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
"Heero."
"Hey!" Duo turned around to watch the last of his sandwich vanish into Heero's mouth. "What is this, Starve Duo Day?"
"I'm a growing boy?" Heero grinned hopefully.
Duo snorted and began making a third sandwich. "He's right, though, Wu. Take advantage of this. Meishel is headed to Earth, and Shan's busy with Gage. Take a break from being Super Dad all the time. Spend time doing things you enjoy, like fighting with your wife. It's your vacation too."
He sat the sandwich down and gave Heero a piercing glare. "I'm going in the other room to order up some chips. Don't you touch that."
"I promise that I will not eat your sandwich." Heero said sincerely.
Duo gave him a disbelieving look and went to the food transporter. A few minutes later he walked back to the kitchen. The plate contained only crumbs and a grease spot.
He opened his mouth to scream at Heero, but his mate held up his hands. "I swear, it wasn't me."
Duo's eyes narrowed on Wufei, who had was still chewing. "I suppose you're a growing boy too?" He asked sarcastically.
"Of course not. I was hungry. I never promised you I wouldn't take it."
He stood up. "Thank you for the food and the advice. I think I will go home and try and make peace with Denea." He pushed in the chair and left.
"Finally. Silence." Heero leaned back in his seat, watching in amusement as Duo made a fourth sandwich and huddled protectively over it.
"Think it'll last?" Duo grinned over his shoulder.
"Who knows?" Heero walked up to him and before Duo could react, plucked the food from his hand.
"Heero!"
"You don't need it. Come on, I'll take you out to lunch. We can work on plans for the party there."
Duo suddenly remembered something and burst out laughing.
"What?"
"What Gage called Wufei. Justice Skunk. I'm slow on the draw today. Oh god, that's funny!"
"Sounds like a demented comic book character." Heero agreed. "Someone should write... "
They looked at each other. Lunch could wait.
"I wondered if I was ever going to see you again."
Gage continued to stare out at the lake as Shan neared him, but his heart was hammering so loudly that he was sure the other boy could hear it.
Shan walked to the edge of the lake, standing next to Gage but not looking at him either. "I did a lot of thinking last night. I didn't get much sleep."
"Oh?"
"I had to be sure about a couple of things." Shan kicked a rock into the water. "I had to ask myself if what I feel when I'm with you is real, or am I just attracted to you because I need to rebel against my father."
"Those are some deep thoughts." Gage agreed. He bent down and picked up a rock of his own, throwing it so that it skipped across the water's surface. "Did you reach any deep resolutions to go along with them?"
"Yeah. I decided that I'm not that shallow, that I wouldn't fa... I wouldn't like someone just out of spite. That if I'm feeling it, it's because it's true."
"So you're willing to give us a try? Is that what you're saying?"
"I want to." Shan laughed. "You are the craziest person I've ever known."
"Certifiable." Gage agreed, looking at Shan then, and his expression was as close to shy as Shan had ever seen it. "I'm... I'm glad. I was up most of the night too. I was worried that I'd moved too fast. Your sister and I talked for a while; she said that you didn't have to tell her anything, that she could tell it just from looking at you. She's worried; she made me promise that I'd take care of you."
"So what do we do now?"
"We've got all summer." Gage moved closer, and pulled Shan against his body. "I say that we relax, and get to know each other better. Do a little of this." He leaned forward and gave Shan a kiss that almost stopped his heart. "Okay, a lot of that." He amended. "And we'll move as fast or as slow as you want to, Shanny Boy. I'm not going to lie to you. I want to do a lot more than kiss you." His lips were against Shan's ear now. "I've been planning our first time. I want you to be the one in control the first time we do it."
"I don't kn... "
"I'll teach you."
Gage's proximity to Shan and the images his words were creating were almost more than the boy could handle. He blurted out the first thing that came into his mind.
"Well, you did say that when you came back we could play together."
Gage paused for a moment, and then chuckled evilly. "Oh yeah. I know lots of fun games." Shan's knees buckled to feel the swipe of a tongue against his ear. "But we're not little kids any more, Shanny Boy."
"Gage... "
"I want you to know something else, too. This is important. You can trust me."
"I know."
"What I mean is, you can trust me not to mess around on you. I don't believe in that." His voice was suddenly bitter. "I'm not my dad. If I'm yours, I'm only yours."
"Your dad cheats on your mom?"
"Well, I can't prove it... " Gage admitted. He looked skyward for a second. "See, I know all their computer passwords, and one day I was messing around in my dad's bank account. I wasn't trying to even take anything; I was just having some fun. I thought maybe I could slip in a few charges that he didn't recognize, let him have a blast arguing with his bank that he didn't order 45 inflatable dolls, or something like that. Anyway, I found all these checks made out to the same woman every month. A Laura Landagren. He's been paying her a few grand a month for years now. And here's where it gets weird. You know me; I can't let sleeping dogs lie. So a few days later I went up to my dad and I said 'Hey, I ran into an old friend of yours. She asked me to say hi to you. She said her name was Laura Landfill or something like that." Gage chuckled. "And he just flipped out on me. He started hammering me with all these questions about where did I see her, and what did she say to me, and he looked absolutely terrified. He said that I was never to speak to her again under any circumstances, and not to believe any 'garbage' she might try and tell me. So it's not like he's been loaning a buddy of his a few bucks. Whoever this broad is, he's working pretty hard to make sure that no one finds out about her. She's got to be his mistress. Or else he used to boink her and now she's blackmailing him about it."
"That's just low." Shan said angrily. "Even if your mom is evil like you say, your dad's a real jerk for doing that to her."
"Ain't he just? But it doesn't run in the family. I'm a one-man man."
"You better be." Shan locked his fingers behind Gage's neck. "Because I do take after my mother in some areas. And if she ever found out that my dad was fooling around on her she would make sure that it was impossible for him to do it ever again."
"Oh, that doesn't sound pleasant." Gage winced. "Although given that it's Justice Skunk we're talking about, I can't be all that sympathetic."
"You really hate my father, don't you? He's really not as bad as you think. He's just really stubborn."
Gage frowned. "Look, I'm not supposed to tell you this, but Jazz told me what your father did to you when you were little, because you're afraid of fire. Shanny Boy, how can you forgive him for something like that? How can you look at him and still defend him?"
Shan sighed and turned away for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "Because that one bad time, and it was bad, wasn't enough to erase all the good times. You might not understand this, because I don't think you've had a lot of good times with your parents. And you're not Deran like me. Until I was two, my mother was blind. So there was a lot of stuff she couldn't do for 'Shel and me, and Baba had to. And even after she could see again, he didn't want to stop. So I've got all of these memories of my father carrying me around, and singing me to sleep. I even remember the first moment I saw him, right after I was born. I remember that look on his face, this overwhelming love. He's a pain the rear, but he's my Baba. Sometime families hurt each other; it doesn't mean you stop being a family because of it."
"You're right." Gage said quietly. " I don't understand."
"What about your uncle?" Shan tried. "You love him. What if he did something bad to you? Could you forgive him for it?"
"That would depend on what it was, I guess. I want to say that I could forgive him for anything, but I don't know. Sometimes, as much as I love him, I hate him too. Because if he'd stand up to my aunt, we could have spent a lot more time together. I could have gotten to know my cousins a little more. Now it's too late for that."
"You asked me to give you a chance, Gage, and I am. But now I'm asking you to give me a chance. And unfortunately my family is part of the deal. You don't have to like my dad, but it would mean a lot to me if you'd try and become friends with him."
"Wow, you don't ask much. Just miracles. Trust me to pick the most demanding guy in the universe to hook up with."
Shan glared at him.
"Okay, okay, but no promises. I'll try and refrain from calling him Justice Skunk to his face. I won't poke holes in his toothpaste tube, either."
"That was you?? He thought Mom did that!"
"What can I say? I am God."
Shan wrinkled his nose. "You are NOT the messiah. You're a very naughty boy." He said in a high voice.
"Oh, you haven't even began to see naughty."
End Part 13
(:./lasha/two13)
